Sky Anytime+ Set To Be Rolled Out To Everyone

January 30th, 2012

Sky have announced that from Easter 2012 their Sky Anytime+ service will be available to all subscribers with an Anytime+ capable HD box, regardless of who supplies their broadband. Up until now customers were required to have the Sky Broadband package.

Sky Anytime+ comes at no extra charge and already provides access to a wide range of on-demand content including movies, entertainment, documentaries and drama ‘box sets’.

Sky will also be adding BBC iPlayer and ITV Player content to the Anytime+ service, after reaching agreement with BBC and ITV.

Sky Anytime+ goes from strength to strength with more content and increased reach [sky.com]

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Watch ESPN For Free

January 29th, 2012

All Sky customers will be able to watch ESPN free from 6am Friday 3rd February until 6am Monday 6th February. This includes ESPN, ESPN HD, ESPN America and ESPN America HD.

Fri 3rd Feb:
19:30 – LIVE Bundesliga: Nuremberg v Dortmund

Sat 4th Feb:
01:00 – LIVE NBA New York @ Boston
16.30 – LIVE Barclays Premier League: Manchester City v Fulham
19:45 – LIVE Serie A: Roma v Inter

Sun 6th Feb:
03:00 – LIVE UFC 143 St Pierre v Diaz
11:30 – LIVE Serie A: Genoa v Lazio
13:45 – LIVE Serie A: Fiorentina v Udinese
16:45 – LIVE Bundesliga: Kaiserslauern v Cologne
19:15 – LIVE Serie A: AC Milan v Napoli

subject to change



Upcoming after this weekend:

Tues 8th Feb:
19:30 – FA Cup 4th round replay.

Sat 11th Feb:
11:15: SPL – Dunfermline v Rangers
14:00: APR – Gloucester v Northampton
16:30: BPL – Spurs v Newcastle
19:45: Serie A

Sun 12th Feb:
12:30: APR – Wasps v Saracens
16:15: Bundesliga – Cologne v Hamburg

Wed 15th & Thurs 16th Feb:
UEFA Europa League (1x Wed, 2 x Thurs)

Sat 18th & Sun 19th Feb:
FA Cup 5th Round fixtures x 2
Assorted Serie A, Bundelsiga, APR ,Top 14, NBA games

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Panasonic NV-HS 860 VCR (Z-Mech) Loading Issues

January 9th, 2012

I decided it was time to transfer all my VHS videos to digital format. I found a great resource at digitalfaq.com – VCR Buying Guide (S-VHS, D-VHS, Professional) for restoring video. It includes a list of recommended “pro-sumer” video recorders with advanced features like TBC (Time Base Correction), which are essential for digital transfer.

After a bit of searching I managed to get Panasonic NV-HS 860 off eBay for a decent price. Unfortunately it didn’t appear to survive the journey well. After inserting a cassette the motors whirred for a second or two and then the unit powered off. Powering it on again caused the tape to eject.

After removing the lid I could see it was failing to move the tape guides to load the tape from the cassette.

Here’s a couple videos showing it in action:

On closer inspection of the mechanism noticed the tension band had lifted off the supply spindle. I replaced the tension band but it didn’t help.

I removed the mechanism for inspection and found one of the teeth from the small white loading gear, broken and sitting in grease on the adjoining metal rail. Although not good I didn’t think this would be the problem as it was from quite far round and the cog wasn’t even getting that far.

At this point I was pretty stuck, so posted some info on a couple of forums and vicboduk on vintage-radio.net came good. He posted this picture and suggested that it might be a split worm gear:

Panasonic NV-HS 860 Split Worm Gear

Closer inspection confirmed this as the fault:
Panasonic NV-HS 860 Split Worm Gear #2

As a quick fix I removed the gear and super-glued it. This did the trick and the VCR was able to load and play tapes properly.

The cheapest I could find a replacement for this tiny piece of plastic was £6.15 with delivery from sparedparts.com. I decided instead to try and find another Panasonic VCR which used the same Z-mechanism – that way I would get a load of spare parts in case anything else goes wrong. In the end I picked up a Panasonic NV-HD 640 for £8 including delivery and salvaged the part from there.

Now I can get round to transferring those VHS tapes.

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Sky Digital – Current Offers – December 2011

November 26th, 2011

Here’s a round-up of the latest Sky Digital offers for new and existing customers. All offers valid until 29th December 2011 (unless stated) and only available online.

UPDATE: These offers have now expired. Please see the Sky Offers page for the latest deals.

Sky+ TV, broadband and calls



· £100 M&S voucher (until 21st December)
· Free Sky+ box and £30 set-up
· Broadband everyday lite and inclusive evening and weekend calls
· Sky wireless N router
· Plus £12.25 line rental
· Prices from £20 a month
New customers only.

Sky+ HD, broadband and calls



· £100 M&S voucher (until 21st December)
· Free Sky+HD box and free standard set-up
· Broadband everyday lite and inclusive evening and weekend calls
· Sky wireless N router
· Plus £12.25 line rental
· Prices from £30.25 a month
New customers only.

6 months half price Sky broadband unlimited for existing customers



· Up to 20Mb unlimited half price for 6 months, with calls and line rental
· £3.75 for the first 6 months then just £7.50 a month
· Includes evening and weekend calls to UK landlines
· Includes Wifi N router
· Plus £12.25 line rental
Existing Sky TV customers only.

6 months half price broadband unlimited with calls and line rental for new customers without TV



· Up to 20Mb unlimited broadband half price for 6 months, with calls and line rental
· Prices from £5 a month for the first 6 month then just £10 a month
· Includes evening and weekend calls to UK landlines
· Includes Wifi N router
· Plus £12.25 line rental
· No activation fee
New customers only.

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TiVo Cancels EPG Service

February 16th, 2011

First the good news: the TiVo service for series1 users is free for the next 3 months.

The bad news: as of 1st Jun 2011 TiVo is discontinuing the EPG service.

This follows on from the withdrawal of the InView EPG service for Digifusion, Sony, Thomson and Inverto Freeview boxes, in June last year.

TiVo are encouraging users to switch the TiVo-powered Virgin Media service; a service which is only available to 50% of the UK.

See the official announcement:
http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/318/kw/uk

Joshua Danovitz, GM & VP of TiVo has put a post up on the TiVo blog about this:
http://blog.tivo.com/2011/02/1123/

Solutions

I don’t know much about the TiVo service or the boxes, but it sounds like there are some possibilities if you hack your box.

Steve Jenkins produced a guide to adding a network card to the TiVo and setting up TiVoWeb:
http://tivo.stevejenkins.com/network_cd.html

The wikipedia page for TiVoWeb is worth a read also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoweb

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